The green-bordered text below is is the English version of the explanatory text,
from the page facing the map. Another page on this site gives the
full text in German, English, French, and Bulgarian.

35. – Bulgaria according to the Treaty of Berlin (1878).

This new map by Kiepert, the celebrated German cartographer, represents the Balkan peninsula as fixed in her boundaries by the Berlin Congress of June and July 1878 and by the special technical commissions of the years 1879-80.

In accordance with the treaty, signed at this congress on the 13th of July of that year, the newly created Principality Bulgaria has been cut into 5 parts: the Dobrudja, as left to Roumania by the treaty of St. Stefano, became enlarged: the Bulgarian territory, given by the same treaty to Servia, was also expanded – the towns Plrot and Vranja with their districts being handed over to Servia; all Macedonia went back to Turkey; Thracia, being deprived of any sea and, considerably mutilated south and east, was torn from the Principality Bulgaria and made an independent province under the name of "Eastern Rumelia"; and the Principality of Bulgaria, mutilated in such an unjust and unscrupulous manner, was allowed to exist, as a politically independent small state, only north of the Balkan mountains, and this under the everlasting fear of Turkish garrisons which were to be located in the very Balkan mountains between the two Bulgarias.

The injustice done to the Bulgarian people was so flagrant that the representatives of the two Bulgarias, assembled at Tirnovo, had to protest against it; in the meantime the "Athletic batalllons", quickly called to life in East-Rumelia, decided to resist with arms the settlement of Turkish garrisons on the Balkans. The great powers were soon convinced that the Balkan peninsula would be again visited by storms, and hurried to advise Turkey to abandon the despatch of garrisons to the Balkans, and Turkey saw herself obliged to submit.

The Berlin treaty is the most convincing proof for the way in which international treaties should not be written. The wrong committed by it has endangered the peace of Europe, and doubtless led to the Balkan-wars which were the germ of the present Universal War.

Keywords: East Rumelia – Bulgaria – Berlino, treaty of

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